Santorini, Shaped by Its Volcano
A Long-Ago Huge Explosion Affected All Aspects of this Island
© Ja Woolf
3500 years ago, a massive volcanic explosion on this Cycladic island wiped out the Minoan civilisation and shaped the future of the island for future generations.
Santorini, in the Greek Cyclades, is an island that has always been dominated by its volcano, in good times and in bad. About 3,500 years ago, one of the largest volcanic explosions the earth has ever seen blew out the whole of the island's centre. The catastrophe reduced Santorini to a sickle-shaped piece of land centred on a huge lagoon known as a caldera. This caldera measures 12 kilometres across at the largest, and it is surrounded on three sides by 300 metre high cliffs.
Volcano View Holiday Homes
For the people of modern Santorini the most significant thing about the explosion today is that it has made them rich. It has created the stunning views which now provide a major selling point for holiday apartments and hotels. Hundreds of these vacation dwellings, nearly all of them brightly whitewashed, overlook the lagoon. From a distance they seem to be scattered over the cliff-tops like a heavy sprinkling of salt.
Originally, many of the holiday homes were peasant dwellings, since islanders traditionally lived in caves in the rock face, with doors and windows added for privacy and light. Now, holidaymakers pay hundreds of euros to stay there. The small town of Imerovigli is among those offering the most spectacular panoramas. It has good views of the tiny island of Nea Kameni, thrown up by the volcano, which smoulders day and night with yellow sulphur as though guarding the gates of Hades. Nea Kameni’s outline is broken by a luminous-green bay that often holds a couple of sailing ships. In the evening the multi-coloured cliffs around glow pink in the sunset. It all looks as unreal as Peter Pan’s island.
The Minoan Disaster
But of course the volcano had far more important and significant effects than what happened to the tourist trade. The area around Santorini has been erupting periodically for millennia, but the most famous explosion is probably the one in the late Bronze Age which destroyed the amazingly advanced civilisation of the Minoans. The Minoan empire was based around the island of Crete, 70 nautical miles from Santorini.
The Minoans colonized many of the islands in the region, for they were a very advanced civilisation. They built enormous multi storey palaces, they had paved roads and even installed sewers! But approximately 3500 years ago, the vast explosion on Santorini sent a tsunami rolling across the Aegean to Crete, and Minoan culture was dealt a devastating blow from which it never recovered.
Akrotiri - Archaeological Treasure Trove
Back on Santorini, the Minoan town of Akrotiriwas also destroyed by the volcano's eruption. There is a huge archaeological site on the site of this vast town, barely excavated as yet, which is at the south of the island. At the time of the eruption, it seems that Akrotiri had been newly refurbished, because an earthquake the previous year had caused many inhabitants to move out while workmen restored the buildings, re-painted the frescoes and repaired the walls.
It was all in vain. Shortly after, the volcano exploded violently and entombed Akrotiri in ash. The Museum of Prehistoric Thira at Fira contains many beautifully painted, descriptive frescoes and artefacts from the town, and is a popular tourist attraction.
Will Santorini's volcano explode again? Undoubtedly. But volcanoes work on a very long timescale, and the experts do not predict that another major explosion will occur too soon.
